In reaction to the horrific death of young Agnès, 13, who was allegedly raped and murdered by a classmate last week, the French government has announced a new series of measures on juvenile justice, notably requiring juvenile offenders to be placed in closed juvenile detention centers while pending trial in cases of “serious sexual crimes.”

The alleged murderer, age 17, was already under examination for the 2010 rape of another school girl. Thus, the tragedy of Agnès’ death has brought up many questions about the juvenile justice system in France. Focus has been on issues of security like communication between the system and schools that accept juvenile offenders after the school that the two minors attended said they did not know full details about the boy’s past. Politicians are already reacting to what will certainly be election issues.

• Government announces new measures

Facing the debate that has swelled after the murder of young Agnes, French Prime Minister François Fillon announced a new series of measures on Monday.

“For the most serious of crimes, the Ministry of Justice will require the accused juvenile offender to be kept in detention centers pending trial,” said the Prime Minister in a press communiqué.

He also announced that from here on out, school officials would receive full information about the past offenses of a juvenile offender still under judicial control before enrollment “in cases as serious” as that of the alleged murderer of Agnès. He maintained that information would be shared while still respecting the “requirements of secrecy required by trials and investigations.”

François Fillon also asked Minister of Justice Michel Mercier and Secretary of State for Health Nora Berra to evaluate “the tools and resources available for the psychiatric evaluation of violent criminals.” This would be “both to evaluate the level of danger that the offenders pose as well as to bring them the treatment that the judicial authority requires them to follow.”

The Ministry of Justice announced Monday that the question of “evaluating the danger” posed by juvenile offenders would be included in a law presented to the French Cabinet Wednesday.

“Sometimes, if you have just one expert, you can make a mistake. We need to better organize the evaluation of the danger posed by juvenile offenders at the very least in serious cases,” Justice Minister Mercier explained. “We probably have a lot of progress to make in the question of communications between the justice, the schools, and the health department. We were already preparing a decree that organized this sharing of information and it is practically ready to go.”

On Monday evening, Minister of the Interior Claude Guéant admitted on French national television that there was a “dysfunction” in the management of the affair, which allowed that the young man believed to be the murderer was placed in a co-ed school even though he was under investigation on charges of rape.

The minister says that a reform in the juvenile justice system will be “one of the priorities” after the upcoming elections of 2012. He returned to the fact that “at 17 years and 11 months, you are subject to one law” while “at 18, you are subject to another law.” The alleged murderer will turn 18 at the end of the year.

• The Alleged Murderer

Mathieu M. was under examination for the rape of a childhood friend in August 2010 in the town of Le Gard. The two were on a walk in a pine forest when the alleged event occurred.

The 17-year-old adolescent, who had overcome problems with drugs, spent four months in juvenile detention pending trial on the rape charges.

However, psychiatrists and psychologists, as well as the report of the Judicial Youth Protection Directorate (PJJ) judged him to be “capable of reintegration and of no danger.”

According to the French newspaper Le Monde, the young aggressor’s parents tried to find their son “an environment less severe than the educational establishments where the PJJ often enrolls juvenile offenders.”

The family ran into numerous refusals until finally finding an establishment that would accept their son. While awaiting trial, Mathieu M. was to be under “strict judicial control” that included medical treatment and a ban on returning to his hometown of Le Gard.

The prosecutor and the lawyer of the first victim say that the young man respected these constraints. The only discordant voice came from the victim’s cousin, who said that Mathieu returned to Le Gard during each school vacation.

• What did the school, Cévénol, know about Mathieu M.’s past?

Agnès’ parents accused Cévenol, the private school that their daughter and her aggressor attended, of negligence. They say that the school knew about Mathieu M.’s past.

“School officials told us before witnesses that this boy had had problems after acts of sexual aggression,” said the father to the news program 20 minutes. “They knew.”

School officials deny this; Philippe Bauwens, the headmaster of Cévenol, said he had no idea of the acts that the alleged murderer had been charged with.

School officials knew only that “Mathieu had had run-ins with the justice system.”

“His parents told me that he had been incarcerated for four months, but we were not told that he had been charged with rape,” said Bauwens to the newspaper Le Monde.

The headmaster assured that, had he known, Mathieu would not have been admitted to the school.

However, this version of the facts was disputed by Jean-Yves Coquillat, prosecutor Clermond-Ferrand, the region where Cévenol is location.

“The establishment accepted the minor in full understanding of the circumstances after he was refused by numerous other schools,” he said to Le Monde. “There is a letter in his file that attests this.”

On Monday evening, Justice Minister Michel Mercier confirmed the existence of a letter, dating August 2010, in which the parents of the alleged murderer informed the school of “serious acts” involving their son, but did not elaborate on the nature of those acts.

“They wrote that their son had been in detention pending trial for serious acts that they themselves were shocked by and that they left it to the head of the establishment to speak with their son about it,” said the Ministry of Justice. “That is not sufficient. It is necessary to go further and it is completely normal that the justice informs the head of the establishment of the details when they decided on enrollment.”

Cévenol did reveal that Mathieu was called before its board in June 2011, without giving details about this convocation.

However, school officials affirmed that the Cévenol board does not act as a disciplinary body for students committing serious offences, after an erroneous statement made by the French daily 20 Minutes. The daily, citing a representative of the parents association of the school, had earlier indicated that Mathieu and other boys were called before a “disciplinary council,” which was not the case. The daily said the boys were summoned after “inappropriate behavior” towards young female borders.

On Monday, the headmaster of the school said that there were “early warning signs that, in light of current events, would have been indicators,” but when interviewed by French news service AFP, a school official denied that the boy had been accused of “inappropriate behavior.”

“They had borderline attitudes with the supervision staff and with other students,” she said.

According to Agnès’ father, after this convocation, “school administers had thought about expelling him before deciding in September to allow him to continue.”

Mathieu left contrasting impressions on those around him at Cévenol.

He was described as “a brilliant and quite cultivated student who seemed pretty nice,” “wild about computers” and “pretty good at hacking.” He was also described as “a total liar” who lied about his age and his past.

The young man is in custody. Officials said that he seemed “very cold.”

• The Families of Agnès and of the First Victim Speak Out

Late Monday afternoon, Agnès’ father said he wanted to avoid “all politicization” of his daughter’s murder. However, he said that he hopes that it will “mobilize all actors in bringing sex offenders to justice.” Agnès’ parents will meet with the Minister of Justice Michel Mercier.

The family of Mathieu M.’s first victim also spoke out. Alain Diaz, the girl’s cousin, said that releasing the offender at the end of 2010 was “indecent.”

“How could you let that monster go free?” he said on Monday. “My cousin survived the same horrible experience as Agnès. She was raped with different objects while she was gagged and tied to a tree. She would have been killed if her mother hadn’t called her phone.”

The first victim’s lawyer is Valérie Devèze. Devèze reported that the girl said that she feels as if she was “saved by a miracle, even more than before.”

Devèze says that Agnès’ death is “scientific proof that psychiatry isn’t an exact science. It will be up to the legislator to ensure that these dramas don’t reoccur.”

• Flood of Reactions from Politicians

With questions from the public and eyes on the upcoming presidential elections, many politicians have spoken out on the tragedy. Despite the pleas of Agnès’ father, the issue is becoming more and more politicized.

Marine Le Pen, president of the far right party the Front National (FN), said that she supported the death penalty for “those who kill our children.”

More than anything, however, the tragedy has launched a reflection on the juvenile justice system and closed juvenile detention centers, called centres éducatifs fermés (CEF) in France. Both sides—Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP Party and the Socialists—advocated an increase in the number of centers and a re-evaluation of their management.

“We need to evaluate the effectiveness of structures designed to accept juvenile delinquents and ask ourselves questions about their number and the resources that they have at their disposal,” said André Vallini, who is in charge of questions of justice in the campaign of Socialist Party presidential frontrunner François Hollande.

The former minister of justice, Rachida Dati, a member of Sarkozy’s UMP party, insisted on the general implementation of CEFs with “real child psychiatrists.”

Dati said that, in the past, she had “made clear proposals on the judicial treatment of minors” that were not followed by the prime minister.